France

13 May - 3 June 2006

Paticipants: Rachel Grindlay, Tom Brennan

Hong Kong (12 hour stopover)

Buddha at Ngong Ping - the start of our walk

Rachel en route to Lantau Peak

View down Lantau Island

Rachel and Tom at Lantau Peak (934m)

Tom looking down to the valley

Rachel during a rest break on the descent

Rachel at Hong Kong's walk-through aviary

Rachel looking at the city from Victoria Peak

The funicular railway to Victoria Peak

France

Paris

a recently cleaned Notre Dame, Paris

The Vercors

Grenoble

In the village of St-Nizier-du-Moucherotte looking out to Le Moucherotte (peak) and Les Trois Pucelles

View from our room in St Nizier

Start of our 70km walk

Looking down to Grenoble and Roc de Bataillon

Our first (of many) snow encounters - this one close to the peak of Le Moucherotte

Tom at la table d'orientation at Le Moucherotte (1906m). Behind him is where the walk goes.

Tom walking along the path on the western side of the range

Rachel about to start the descent to Villard-de-Lans

View from Villard-de-Lans to the mountains our path follows

The mascot of Villard-de-Lans

Rachel and Tom at the Royban Refuge

Views over the western side of the range

Rachel making her way up to the pass of Col Vert

Rachel still slogging her way up

Final views of the western side of the range from Col Vert

The seat at Col Vert (1766m) - Grenoble in background

Tom on Sentier du Balcon Est with Les Aiguilles behind

Rachel next to one of the many signposts - note the baguettes in rubbish bag attached to the pack!

Rachel crossing one of the 4 snow drifts we encountered that day

The gite d'etape we stayed at the end of day 2

After dinner at the gite - our hosts tried to convince us to sample the local liqueurs - yellow and green chartreuse and Genepy des Alpes

The view at sunset from the gite. Mont Aiguille is bathed in sunlight. Our original route would have taken us along the range on a path about half-way up the mountains. Due to the amount of snow we went through the valley instead

The view from our room in the morning

The Rochers des Deux Soeurs behind the gite

Another view of the eastern side of the range

A far easier road to travel then the balcony path of the previous day!

One of the many cows around - this one in the hamlet of St Andeol

Our only stream crossing - the water was freezing!

Walking up through the forest

Tom with Le Grand Veymont in the background

View of Le Grand Veymont (2341m) from our room in Gresse-en-Vercors - we had planned to climb it but a combination of bad weather and too much snow stopped that plan

Donkeys in the hamlet of la Batie

Rest stop on the way to Col de l'Aupet

Mont Aiguille - the home of French mountaineering (first climbed in 1492)

View from our room in Richardiere

Mont Aiguille in the morning

Looking up to the Pas de l'Aiguille

Tom en route to Pas de l'Aiguille

Looking down the dodgy terrain

One of the caves on the plateau

Mouth of the cave. This plateau was the scene of some WWII resistance. 23 men held out against German attack for over 30 hours in one of the caves

Looking out over the plateau and the monument to the 8 men who died during the attack

A waterfall

Final view of Mont Aiguille

View from Fort de la Bastille over Grenoble. We came up in one of the pods

View of Grenoble - the straight road is 8km long!

Canal Boat - Agen to Valence-sur-Baise

We have now travelled to Agen and have boarded the "Damazan". We are crossing an aquaduct - see the river flowing underneath

Alec at the helm

Hannah on one of the hire bikes

Toby on another of the bikes - about to set off for supplies - pity we don't have a photo from when they got back - hot, sweaty & dishevelled after a 10km ride to catch up with the boat

Rachel at the helm, Liz and Alec supervising :-)

Crossing another aquaduct

Plain trees line the Canal Lateral

More views down the canal with Rachel again at the helm (from the photos you'd think it was a frequent occurance - don't be deceived I think the only two times it happened are both captured in photos)

Views down the canal

Rachel cycling down the tow path (photo taken by Tom while he was riding)

Inside the boat

Captain Tom

Hannah being a tourist in Damazan

Toby also being a tourist in Damazan

Damazan town square

We descended from the Canal Lateral to the River Baise - the first night we stopped at Vianne

Vianne's town wall

Vianne's wall and church

Front of the church

Tom outside the town wall

The only interesting thing about Lavardac!

A chateau we passed on the River

Locking down

One of the many beautiful ex-eclusier's houses

In a lock

Nerac by night

Some of many ducks we saw (both on land and on the dinner table)

Le Chateau de Henri IV

Rachel feeding ducklings

Banana split :-)

Amazing ice cream sundaes in Nerac - no one was game to try the savoury-flavoured sorbets through

Nerac

Doing a u-turn on the river!

Locking up

No room to move - one of the narrow sections - Tom driving with Alec and Hannah looking on

A goose at an eclusier's house

Toby with his neatly coiled hose (shortly after it had leaked water down his jeans)

The Brennan's (minus Nicko who was sailing somewhere off the coast of France)

More locking up

Some of the river wildlife

Hannah retrieving her cap

Large church in Condom

Locking up at the manually-operated, double lock outside Condom

Rachel scaling the ladder to operate the lock

Dragonfly love

A random chateau in Valence-sur-Baise

la table d'orientation in Valence-sur-Baise. Apparently the Pyrenees can be seen in the distance.

The last night on the boat

Cauterets, Pyrenees

Rachel part of the way up the Pic de Cabaliros

Further up the walk as the cloud descends

Daffodils amongst hundreds of buds - image what it would be like in a couple of weeks

Views from the Col de Contente

An old refuge

Almost at the peak

View of the Pyrenees

At the Pic de Cabaliros (2334m)

Rachel trying to not get sunburnt (she failed - the last time Tom listens when Rachel says to not bother bringing sunscreen)

Tom descending

Tom crossing stream

Rachel in the middle of the stream

View from our street in Cauterets

Some rock formations en route to Lac de Gaube

Rachel and Tom at Lac de Gaube

Lac de Gaube

On the other side of Lac de Gaube

Looking down the valley

Waterfall at Pont d'Espagne

Tom on Pont d'Espagne

The track we took back to Cauterets is called the Sentier des Cascades. Unsurprisingly there are a lot of waterfalls! This one is Cascade de Bousses